Photo-elasticity is the phenomenon of stress (or strain) induced birefringence in optically transparent materials. Many such materials are isotropic when unstressed, but when subjected to an uniaxial stress a difference in the index of refraction between the stress direction and directions orthogonal thereto is introduced. Hence the materials exhibit a birefringence which depends on the amount of the uniaxial stress applied to the photo-elastic material. This means that the photo-elastic effect can be used to detect stress. To do this, in one known arrangement, circularly polarised collimated light from an optical source is passed through a piece of photo-elastic material which is subjected to stress along the Z axis. The light passing through an analyzer is then detected. The intensity variations of this light are a measure of the stress.
Arrangements of the above type are described in a paper entitled "Multimode Fiber Optic Sensors" by W. B. Spillman, Jnr., and D. H. McMahon, of the Sperry Research Centre, USA, at pages 160-163 of Proc. Optical Fibre Sensors Conference, Apr. 26-28 1983, IEE, Savoy Place, London. One example of a photo-elastic material is a glass obtainable from the Edmond Scientific Co. Another suitable photo-elastic material is a Pyrex glass.